He turned his head, and shouted (for he was many yards ahead), “We missed the highway entirely. I see the bay.”
I shouted up, “Which bay? Rhossili Bay, Port Eynon Bay, or Oxwich Bay?”
He shouted back, “It’s not labeled in a prominent place!”
I shouted up again, “If you see Cornwall across the Channel, you’re looking South. If you see Worm’s Head, you’re looking West!”
I paused to look upward as I said it, but the sky was still as gray as old cotton, and the clouds were no brighter in one direction than the other. I said aloud, “How could we reach the water without going through Penrice, or the campgrounds? Even if we were headed due East instead of South, we should have crossed the B-4247 between Rhossili and Scurlage.”
Colin stomped up the slope past me, kicking snow from his boots at every step. He gave me a dark, sinister smile, saying, “Anyone can make a dot on a piece of paper, write a name by it, and pretend there is a town there.”
I stepped into motion again, toiling up the slope next to him. “But we’ve all been to Abertwyi. Where is Abertwyi?”
Colin said, “We were
“Why would that make a difference?”
“They changed the paths there. If there is a there.”
“How?”
“The girl who believes in the Fourth Dimension is asking me to explain it?”
“Look, there has to be a world somewhere. What about France?”
“What about Slumberland, Narnia, and Oz? France is obviously a made-up place. Those places only exist if we believe in them.”
“You’re more skeptical than Victor is.”
Colin just snorted at that. “Hmph! Vic? Well, I should jolly well hope so.”
And in a tone of voice that made it clear he thought Victor was both (1) the most naive and (2) the most dogmatically pigheaded boy in our group or, maybe, in the world.
At that point, Vanity and Quentin (who had forged ahead of Colin and me while we slowed to talk) achieved the brink of the slope where Victor stood.
Vanity let out a shriek of pure joy. “She came! She really came! All my life I’ve been waiting, and I didn’t even know it… and, and… Victor! You idiot! Why didn’t you tell me she was here!”
Colin and I raced up the last few steps of the slope.
A silver ship, a trireme sleek as a spear, lay shining atop the waves below. By the prow a painted eye gravely gazed toward shore, wise and watchful. I think it was painted.
“Oh, she came!” Vanity breathed in breathless joy, and her whole soul was in her eyes.
3.
The land fell very sharply down. A few trees clung to the far slope, and then, in a sudden brink, a cliff fell to the sea. White and gray water surged among the rocks; white and gray seagulls hopped from stone to stone, or shivered in the chill wind. One or two birds skimmed the waters on crooked wings, silent.
About a quarter of a mile out in the water was a ship. Perhaps I should call her a boat, she was so small.
She was silvery-white, with a prow like a Greek trireme, sloping like a sleek nose into a bronze-jacketed ram at the waterline. Two eyes had been painted on the prow, one to port and one to starboard. A mast like a white finger rose from blocks amidships. Aft, a small deck rose into a shape like a peacock’s tail.
She was slender and sleek, built for speed like a racing scull, but the rail and the fantail were set with hammered silver, and the bench at the stern was carved and polished and set with white cushions held by silver nails, and all so finely crafted as to make the whole vessel shine like a lady’s jewel. The mast held nothing but a lamp, intricate with silver wire and nacre. There were no oars; there was no steering board or rudder.
The whole vessel was perhaps forty yards long, four yards broad at the waterline, with planks forming outriggers perhaps six yards wide above. She lay as lightly on the waters as a swan, as slim and finely crafted as a Japanese sword.
4.
Vanity exclaimed happily, “She can take us anywhere in the world in a day and a night!”
She started down the steep slope, moving quickly, almost running. The snow began to slide and curl around her legs, so that little growing snowballs were trickling down the slope with her.
Colin said, “Hoi! Careful!” And, ignoring his own advice, with that axe still in his hand, went pelting and sliding down the slope after her.
Victor said mildly, “We should approach with care, if that ship was seen by the enemy.”
Quentin said in a hushed voice, “There is something ill afoot here. Vee and Coll usually aren’t so rash.” Then, shouting: “Come back! You two! Come back!” And he started down the slope, slipped, and fell, sliding at least two dozen yards before he spread his arms and legs and caught himself in a little wash of snow. His duffel bag went rolling and bounding and gliding down past where Vanity was skipping gaily down-slope, past where Colin was half- skating, half-stumbling. As it tumbled past, the bag began to spill canned goods from its unraveling mouth.
I saw Quentin’s walking stick, his precious walking stick, go shooting over a hump in the snow like a little toboggan, and vanish into the trees.
Victor said, “My wits, at least, are not clouded. Amelia, follow me. We are going to go left and circle this slope, and go down along the gentler slope over there, where those pine trees are. You see where I mean?” And he picked up Colin’s bag, which Colin had left behind. Vanity’s duffel was about forty yards down-slope from us. She had abandoned it, and it had rolled to catch up against a leafless tree, bringing down a little shower of ice particles.
In a moment, Victor and I were among the spruces, jogging quickly down a somewhat more level slope. We could still hear Vanity squealing and Colin cursing. Even quiet Quentin was bellowing to them to shut up. I felt an impulse to shout at them, and call out, and the impulse grew stronger until I had to put my glove in my mouth and bite down on it to prevent myself from yelling at them.
Victor looked at me oddly.
I said, “Something—a hypnotic influence—is trying to get me to call out. Quentin’s right. There is a spell here.”
Victor did not seem affected. All he said was, “Let’s hurry. We can cut across this slope as soon as it levels out, and rejoin them.”
Unlike the leafless trees we had been walking through all morning, the spruce pines blocked our view with their thick needles.
Fear gripped my throat when the voices of Colin and Quentin fell silent, and Vanity let out a long scream.
Victor said, “Maybe we should run. Let’s drop the bags. We can come back for them.”
We ran. Victor simply put his hands in front of his face and pushed through the snow-laden needles of the spruce, letting branches whip him. I followed in his wake, ducking whipping branches, letting him trample a path clear for me.
We broke into the clear. Now I began to pull ahead of Victor. Even with my powers turned off, I was still a swifter runner than he was.
Then I slowed, looking up. Victor came up behind me.
We could see Colin and Quentin on the brink of a little cliff, but we had passed them, somehow. A little
